A Secure Paradox
by Laurielove
Summary: Juliana Crain has a job at the Reich's University library. When a package one day appears on her desk, it threatens to send her once again down a perilous route. And when Juliana has an unexpected visitor the following day, she finds the conflict inside them both can only be resolved one way. Set in a hypothetical reality in Season 2. John Smith/Juliana Crain. M readers only.


**This is my first Man in the High Castle fic, and anyone who knows me will know that it had to be an Obergruppana fic. I've been promising it for long enough. This is a one-shot and, although I've provided context for what eventually happens, I'm not going to extend this or investigate the whys and wherefores of plot. Essentially, it's a means to an end, the end being the inevitable smut. But, that said, I hope the means effectively justifies the end.**

 **I am currently plotting a much longer fic for these two which will hopefully do them and the plot of the show justice, but until then, with a little nudging from you guys, this had to come out.**

 **(A gift for M, who shares my feelings regarding the importance of Roofing and makes me laugh and laugh. ;-) Thank you, lovely you. Enjoy. xx)**

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It was five weeks into her job in the basement of the Greater Nazi Reich's University Library that the package arrived on Juliana Crain's desk.

She had returned from lunch to find it there, and, as much as exhilarating curiosity bubbled within her immediately, it was tempered by a sense of normality. Nothing in her life, she had come to expect, was ever going to be normal again, and so the unexpected had become her norm. And, therefore, the curious discovery struck her as being, in some ways, exceedingly ordinary.

The job itself fit this pattern – curiosity and normality. The Smiths had acquired it for her. Helen had a friend who had a husband who had a colleague who had heard about the position. And Helen's husband, Obergruppenführer John Smith, had ensured Juliana got it. He had been insistent. She had resisted a little, but she knew better than to resist John Smith.

She had wondered about it. Why her? Why John Smith's clear desire for her to take the position? The GNR's Univeristy Library could barely be called a library any longer. Any books that remained were a front to a far darker purpose of eradication of free thought, she knew that, and John Smith knew that too. The books that remained – a fraction of the former number – were housed above in the bright, airy chambers of the original library. They were the ones carefully monitored and chosen by the Reich to compel and drag the minds of the young in the precise direction they wanted.

But they had not got rid of all the volumes, and those which had not been burned had been moved to cellars, vast chambers covering expanses of land deep underground. Here, in the subterranean gloom, could be found those books which had enriched, stimulated and entranced generations. But enrichment, stimulation and entrancement were not on the agenda of the Reich.

Juliana Crain had been given the job of coding and sorting those very books. John Smith had himself ensured it. Was he testing her? Tempting her? Perhaps he thought her already corrupted enough, that nothing more could twist her further than it already had. There would be a reason, and so she did nothing to arouse suspicion.

And then the package arrived. It was a plain, brown paper bag. She thought at first someone had left their lunch there, but nobody ever ventured down into the basement unless on strict Reich business, and nobody left anything behind inadvertently.

She had picked up the bag tentatively and, half hoping that she would only find a cheese sandwich, had instead reached in and pulled out a reel of film.

At first she wanted it to disappear, she wanted it not to be. She had put it back into the bag and rolled up the top as if that way it wouldn't exist.

If truth be told, the extraordinary normality she found herself in was becoming rather comfortable. She had grown used to her commute from her apartment to the university. She had grown used to regular meals at the Smith house and playing tag with the kids in the garden. She had grown used to the clothes she could now afford on the shopping trips with Lucy.

And now this brown paper bag screamed at her that she must never get used to it.

She had thought about taking it home, but everything she carried to and from work was scrutinised, she knew that. In any case, if she took it home, she would have to think about it, and she was not in the mood to think about it. So she opened the drawer of her desk, put it inside, and shut it firmly.

It remained there the next day and she could almost forget it was there. She could hide here, masked behind the rows of shelving, stacks and rows and columns of volumes reaching from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. The books became familiar to her: _Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, Little Women_. They had been titles whispered to her as a child and now, at last, she could read them. She worked efficiently, and when her duties had been fulfilled she would sit, often crouched at the end of an aisle, and pore over the texts, entranced. How could these glorious stories, so rich in imagination and wonder, be anything but an enhancement to every generation to come? And so, with the comfort of her position, came also a deepening of the hatred and loathing of the regime which provided it.

It was within this paradox that she went about her job the day after the package arrived. She was far down an aisle, placing volumes which she had just logged. She had been working for over an hour and had shut out all other thoughts but her own, enclosed, muffled in her own head. But something made her turn. Footsteps, perhaps, a change in the air. She darted her head around.

There, at the end of the aisle, in full SS uniform, stood Obergruppenführer John Smith.

'Hello, Miss Mills.'

Immediate terror took a familiar hold, but she had become used to subverting her fears, she had become used to the dichotomy of John Smith, and so she steadied her breathing and settled her pulse.

'John! What are you doing here?'

He pouted a little, as if it was inconsequential of her to ask. 'I had some business at the university and thought I'd come by and see how you're getting on in your new job.'

'Oh. I see.'

'So …'

'So?'

He held her gaze in that piercing way he had, as if he knew every thought running through her head. 'How are you getting on in your job?'

'Fine.'

'Are you happy here?'

'Yes.' There was a pause. She wanted to escape, she needed to escape, but she was between two racks of shelves which reached from floor to ceiling, Behind her was a wall, before her was him. 'Do you often work at the university?' she tried.

'No, only if there are certain elements which need … examining, let's say.'

'I see.' She turned away and continued putting the books back on the shelf. 'Well, I really should be getting on. If you'll excuse me.'

But he didn't excuse her. Hands deep in his pockets, he took several measured steps down the aisle towards her. 'Actually … there was one other thing.' Her pulse quickened again. 'Something has come to my attention which I'd like to discuss with you.'

She stopped, her hand paused high on the shelf. She dared not turn to look at him, but his presence was so potent there in the closeted, dim space. There was nobody else down here, and even if there were, they were masked by row upon row and shelf upon shelf. He could have his hands around her throat, throttle her within a minute and be gone without anybody knowing he had even been here.

Her breath pained her. He now stood a mere foot away, the crisp cut of his black uniform accentuating his indomitable superiority. 'Aren't you interested in what it is?' he said with that characteristic deceptive lilt.

She darted her head round, fearful not to look at him. She blinked twice. 'What is it?'

The corner of his mouth ticked as if amused. 'I think perhaps you know already … because you're the one who's got it.'

Her mouth ran dry. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Come now, Miss Crain.'

His use of her real name shocked her. 'Wh … why did you call me that?'

The tick at the corner of the mouth turned into a smirk. 'Because I'm tired of pretending. You know and I know exactly what you're doing and exactly who you are. You have another film, don't you?'

She didn't answer. She knew better than to lie to him. He could see through her, see her truth, and even if he couldn't he would crush her until he exposed it.

'Where did you get it from?' he persisted.

She swallowed, relieving the burning need to answer him.

He stepped in again, his hands now out of his pockets and clasped before him, the immaculate lines of his uniform belying the dark intent which lurked, ready to strike at any moment.

'Answer me, Miss Crain.' It was almost a croon. She stared up into his face, shadowed in the gloom of the basement, but the light caught his eyes, those hypnotically large eyes which stared into her, seeing her truth.

 _Dreadfully handsome_ … that's how Lucy had described him. Oh, he was, she admitted. So handsome, and so very dreadful.

She couldn't lie to him. She dropped her head but told him the truth of what she knew. 'I don't know who it was from. It arrived, it just arrived. I came back from lunch and found it here on my desk in a paper bag yesterday. No note, no nothing. You must believe me when I say I don't know who it's from.'

This would be it. She waited for death. Death at his hands.

He stared into her, so close. She could smell his aroma, a rich, heady mix of musk and bergamot, appealing ... alluring. It stirred something in her, which, in her terror, confused her. He was so close and so real. She could reach out and touch him. If she could feel him and know that he was merely human then perhaps, after all, she need not fear him.

He inhaled deeply and averted his eyes. 'That is disappointing.' He had reacted like that before. She'd expected him to kill her then. She expected it now.

But instead he said, quite calmly, 'Have you seen it?'

'No. Not yet.'

'Not yet?' He cocked his eyebrows. 'You intend to?'

'I had intended to.'

'That film belongs to the Reich, Miss Crain. The film belongs to me. Where is it?'

He still looked at her, but now his eyes had left hers and were flitting over her face, down along her neck then back. If he weren't the enemy, she would have almost thought he were admiring her. That ache inside, driven by fear, was now underpinned with something else she daren't admit.

'Is it at your apartment?' he continued.

She shook her head.

'No? Where then?'

She glanced over towards her desk.

He looked over his shoulder, following her gaze, then turned back to her and raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'Here?'

'It's the safest place. Nobody comes down here except me.'

'Is that so?'

She nodded.

'Apart from the person who left it here,' he added.

'I wasn't here then. But nobody usually ever comes down apart from me.'

'So … we're quite alone down here?'

'Yes.'

'Nobody will disturb us?'

'No.'

'We can do … whatever we want.'

He stood right before her, tall and broad, his mere physical presence made her want to cry out. Whatever he wanted … Ridding the Reich of her persistence, her meddling, the annoyance of her.

But he didn't. Instead, he stood and appraised her.

'I must confess, Miss Crain, I find you something of an enigma.'

She stuttered. 'I'm sorry?'

He continued to look over her, not as a man who was about to kill her, but simply as a man. She stared hard at him until his eyes met hers again. 'Every single man you know … Frank Fink ... the Japanese Trade Minister, I'm told … Joe Blake … even … even the Man in the High Castle himself … you have them all eating out of the palm of your hand … you _entrance_ them.'

She had no response. His words robbed her of coherent thought.

'What is it?' He came yet closer and studied her intently. 'Your face? When I was searching for you, I was always told 'the pretty one', 'the beautiful one'.' A wry smile flittered across his face. 'But it's more than that, isn't it?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

He looked at her steadily. 'Perhaps you don't. And that's part of it. You are … untainted … by all this.' He glanced around, not meaning the library but the wider world beyond. 'You retain, despite all you have seen and done, you retain some sort of inherent humanity, when all around you are losing theirs. And it is quite moving in its simplicity.'

Why was he telling her this? Why him? She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against his understanding. How dare he of all people understand her?

'But they were right about that too.'

She looked up. 'Right about what?'

He stared at her calmly and silently for a time and then said, 'You are beautiful.'

For a moment she enjoyed his compliment, she enjoyed his attention. There, in the intimacy of the narrow space, it could be savoured, almost to the point where she could taste it. And at that moment he was more handsome than dreadful.

But then she remembered herself. 'Don't.'

'Don't what?'

'Don't say those things when you're about to-'

'What? What am I about to do?'

'Do it, John. If you're going to, do it quickly.'

He quirked an eyebrow, almost amused. 'You think I'm going to kill you?'

Tears pricked at her eyes. 'Why wouldn't you?'

His brows creased, as if he was giving it serious consideration. 'I have thought about it, often. Not the doing of it as such, that is of no interest to me, but the elimination of an … inconvenience. But, you see, Miss Crain, I've come to the conclusion that … you are not inconvenient. Nobody else thinks you are … so why should I? You see, part of me, just like all the others … is entranced by you.'

He robbed her of breath but she would deny him the effect he was imposing on her. She inhaled deeply to clear her senses but only breathed in the scent of him instead.

'Stop it.' She would fight it. She would fight him.

'I'm not going to kill you, Miss Crain. I need you. And, whether you want to admit it or not … you need me.'

She shook her head forcefully. 'No. I don't.'

'You need somebody to watch out for you, and, believe me, I can do that.'

'Why would you do that?'

'Because … deep down inside … underneath the subterfuge and the deceit and the constant need to keep one step ahead … we both want the same thing.'

He was so close she could feel the fall of his breath on her, warm, sweet.

'What is that?'

'We want predictability, we want security. We want the world to stop, just for a moment, and to know that we're safe. Isn't that true … Juliana?'

She looked up at him and, despite the uniform, despite the determination still etched on his fine features, he too was, at that moment, completely human. And it made her gasp.

'Yes,' she said. A tear caught on her cheek.

'Tell me you want the same as me,' he murmured, his voice so low it was sent almost as a thought. His eyes darted from her eyes to her lips and she instinctively dampened them. That knot inside was twisting and uncoiling with such ferocity she shuddered in a breath. ' _Tell me, Juliana.'_

'Yes. I want the same as you, John.'

And they moved together, lips, bodies colliding like their purposes, hands confirming. She could not say if it was him first or her first because it was both and neither. Their need to touch, to connect at that moment was so strong that they were pulled inextricably together. They kissed, open, hungry, their mouths searching and bruising. She wrapped her arms around him, running them over the black cloth of his uniform, clinging to the strength of the muscles she felt under it, gripping onto him, onto it.

John kissed her violently, brutally, and she gave back all she had. He gripped her waist and pulled her against him. She could feel him hard already and ground against him. At that, he dragged himself with a groan from her mouth to graze down the line of her neck which she bared for him. Lips, tongue, teeth, she craved them and got them, tangling her fingers through his hair to hold him against her as his breath warmed and dampened her skin. John reached the curve of her shoulder and fitted his lips to it. With possessive need he opened his mouth and bit down so that his teeth marked her skin but she could only exclaim in wonder and demand more.

'Yes, yes, please, please.'

Dragging himself up, his hands rose to her blouse and he took hold of it and ripped. Reaching quickly into her bra, he withdrew her left breast and, without pausing, lowered himself to it and took the nipple deep in his mouth.

'Oh, fuck, yes!' she exclaimed, holding him there, allowing him no escape, her mouth hanging open with irrefutable lust. He tugged, licked, sucked on the nipple as if his life depended on it, and shots of such exquisite sensation dashed through her that she sobbed. And then he took it between his teeth, catching it with such perfect intent that the sharpness made her see stars and she sucked in with the beauty of it. Feeling. Reality. Now.

Juliana shrugged off what remained of her blouse and unhooked her bra quickly. With both her breasts naked before him, he moved to the other, gripping it, squeezing it out so that he could go at the nipple, which was already hard and tight with need. His lips tugged, his tongue rolled on it and she grew delirious with need.

But it wasn't enough. Juliana scrabbled at his belt, desperate for more. 'Please, please, for fuck's sake, please.'

He dragged himself from her breasts to slur, 'So needy, Miss Crain. Were you like this with Joe Blake?'

'Don't talk, don't talk about him.' Clenching her fist, she brought it down repeatedly on his chest, hard. With a grunted laugh which only belied his arousal at her reaction, he caught her wrists and encircled them in his hand. John pushed her back against the far wall, raised her hands above her head, and pinned her there.

'You don't want me to talk? I don't have to talk.' He was back to her mouth, opening it, plundering it. But she gave back, offering her tongue, seeking his. Her lips were bruised, her skin alight.

One hand still held her tight, the other was undoing his pants. She glanced down as he released himself, frantically now. He burst out, large, hard, and desire made her groan as he yanked her skirt over her hips. He found her underwear and tugged hard, tearing it, ripping it from her. She waited, her arms still constricted above her, a scratch of red on her lip where she'd bitten down on it in anticipation. His hungry fingers immediately found her and ran along her pussy, already so wet it poured onto him.

John stroked up, quickly finding her clit and grazing it so that she threw her head back and whined. And then two fingers were deep inside her, pumping, not gentle, with a need and force they both craved.

'Yes, yes, yes,' she hissed as he worked in her. But a glance down at his cock, large, dripping its own need, confirmed what must happen.

He pulled out his fingers, pushed her legs apart, gripped her left leg and curled it around him.

She angled herself towards the searching tip of his rigid cock. 'Hurry, hurry, hurry,' she implored.

He paused momentarily, his own breathing ragged. 'You said not to talk, Miss Crain … so … _don't - talk_.' And with that he thrust up into her. She cried out at the sudden forceful fullness of it.

He had risen up into her in one go, pushing her up the wall with his cock, impaling her. 'Fuck!' she cried, her eyes wide with the brutal beauty of it. 'Again.'

'I thought I told you not to talk.' His dominance intoxicated her, and she writhed under his grip but was rendered immobile by his hands and cock. She threw her head to the side with a bewildered wail. John allowed her her cries, his own lust robbing him of reason as much as her. He withdrew only to drive powerfully back up through her giving pussy. At last he released his grip on her wrists and she let her arms drop around his shoulders.

They began a relentless, determined fuck. Juliana coiled both her legs around him, gripped him round the shoulders and leaned back against the wall, knowing this way he could thrust into her deep and high. She bucked along him, loving his size, adoring the completion. He was filling her, filling that ache inside, and she felt tears form with the glory of it.

This man … this man she hated so much and now adored, adored what he was doing to her and how he did it and why he did it. This man who had tormented and hounded and haunted her, now giving her so much pleasure that she couldn't think. This man who understood, who understood despite it all.

She met his eyes again and instinctively, together, they slowed, as if neither of them could bear for it to end. He pulled out so that only the head was in her and then, with prolonged deliberation, pushed right up into her again. This way he caught her clit as he went and she leaned back to feel more of it. 'Yes,' she slurred. 'That's good. That's so good … John … so good.'

They continued this slow, languid fucking and all the while their gazes were locked. At that moment Juliana knew what it mean to be human. And she'd found it with him, her opposite, her negative, her paradox. He didn't remove his gaze from her. Dreadfully handsome. Dreadful. Handsome. His beauty staggered her, and to have it inside her now made ecstasy rise in her just as his cock kept rising into her pussy. She clenched hard on him, making him hiss with pleasure.

'Do that, do that,' he slurred.

She grinned blearily at him and tightened herself around his pistoning cock, holding him, grounding her.

She was whining with each thrust in, a strange earthy noise of abandon, but she didn't care. She didn't want it to finish. This is what he meant, this is what they wanted. Security. Right here, right now, the world had stopped and they were safe. But it must end, and their bodies were so right for each other that it would happen soon.

'John.' She gasped his name, making him real, making him human. 'Come into me.'

She gave him her mouth again and he met it with his, hot and open. They breathed through the other and then he drew back to lock eyes with her. He frowned for an exquisite moment before his face twisted with outrageous rapture. In that moment, John Smith was lost in her, His grip on her backside tightened and he opened his mouth to release a shuddering gasp as he exploded, burst upon burst of his seed pooling deep in her pussy.

At that she came hard, a harsh, ransacking come which made her cry out. Her body shook on him, shook on the rigid flesh of his cock embedded deep inside her. She forced herself against him, her limbs juddering around his, the buttons of his uniform cold and hard against her naked breasts.

It took some time before they moved. He remained there, embedded inside her, pressed along her. Her arms still clung to him, her legs still curled about him, as if they would both vanish and the world with them if they let go.

When at last the ache in their limbs reinforced itself, they slipped and unwound and came apart.

Before they parted completely, he leant down, resting his head briefly against her forehead, and kissed her once on the mouth, soft, gentle and pliant.

Then John turned from her slightly and tidied himself away, adjusting his uniform. The slightest tinge of pink had caught his high cheekbones. He glanced over at her. 'Your clothes are ruined. I'm sorry. How will you get home?'

Juliana pulled down her skirt. Her stockings had runs in them and her panties and blouse lay in tatters on the floor. She picked them up hastily and tugged her hair behind her ears. 'It's alright. I have a jacket. That'll cover it.'

'Are you sure? I can buy y-'

'No! It's alright.' She didn't want his charity. This was both their doing.

He hesitated, unsure what to do next. She had never seen him like it. It beguiled her. Human.

'I have to go.' He turned away.

'John.' He paused and looked back at her. 'What happens now?'

'We carry on, Juliana. We keep one step ahead, we just keep one step ahead.'

As he walked past her desk he opened the drawer. Reaching in, he took out the reel of film. John held it carefully in his hands, but he didn't leave.

'Take it,' she said. 'Just take it and don't say anything.'

'You said you were going to watch it.'

'I was but …'

'Then watch it. Watch it and when you think I need to see it, bring it to me. I'll be there.' And he put the film back in the drawer, pushed it closed, and walked away.

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 **Thank you for your interest. Reviews are like oxygen. As always, I love to hear your thoughts. xx**


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